And getting changed into those flimsy "gowns" is sooooooooooooo unnecessary most of the time. It just makes the office assistants happy when they can order patients to do it! A while back an especially obnoxious assistant at my gastro's office made kind of a speech about "taking everything off below the waist", which I decided to totally ignore, as it was accompanied by a barely suppressed giggle-- this from a female about age 50! Well, several minutes later in came my gastro with a visiting medical professor trailing close behind. Ha! I had figured out that one-- because my gastro can do a neat exam, clothes on patient or not. This visitor positioned himself for a real "peeping Tom" trip, so when the subject of digital exam came up, I calmly asked the gastro if it was really necessary. Gastro equally calmly looked at my record, commented that I had just undergone c-scope a while back with good report, & calmly let me off-the-hook. My feeling is that they should quit using us as guinea pigs for their research inquiries & attempts at professional advancement!!!!!!!!!!!! @#$%&*!!!!!!!!!!! / Old Hat (nearly 30 yrs with left-sided UC ... [etc.])

Couldn't you have declined the visitor in the room? My drs. have always asked if I minded if they stayed. I never have to change into a gown. They just give me a paper "blanket" type thing to put over me, and I only have to undress from the waist down.

I haven't had to change into a gown in my GI's office for......geez, forever. He just comes in, talks to me, has me lay down and feel my gut, writes me any prescriptions and thats it. Even if he has an intern in there with him I never have to get undressed.

ugh the gowns!! i am so sick of the gowns (gown sounds luxurious but SO is not!!) i say we start a movement for cotton gowns. we could call it environmentally friendly...sorry maybe i have just been in the hospital too much recently...i'm all about that t-shirt though!katie23diagnosed with cecal volvulus, 2006; two colon resections in the same yeardiagnosed with colitis 2007malrotated colonno cecal valve, removed during surgerygastritis

Crohniemomx2-- I was not offered the option to decline the visitor-- so I handled the intrusion MY way! These kinds of things happen routinely in urban teaching hospital facilities. (Ugh!) Getting back to kb5's intent, though, YES, we need some EXPLICIT MESSAGE t-shirts to inform medical staff that we resent the arbitrary &/or exploitative way they deal with us. "My body is my temple!" etc. / Old Hat (nearly 30 yrs with left-sided UC ... [etc.])